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e20 DAC - DXD / DSD

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I finally got around to hooking up a 12V car battery from costco and hooking up the E20.

Pretty significant upgrade. Not quite as much as going from e18 to e20 but at this level, its pretty hard to do any better. If I had to put a number on it I'd say 50-75% of the improvement from e18-e20, its not trivial. Again on lesser speakers, the improvement will be scaled appropriately.

What has changed? I think this could be summed as "less distortion". Bass is more articulate, everything has more weight and body.

Better separation of instruments. A/C sounds thinner and the soundstage is more restricted. As you know the Orions are a very natural and 3D enveloping speaker, and with the battery powered E20, the sphere is larger. Huge improvement in low level details like delay, reverb make the overall sense of space more natural and believable. Overall more natural sounding (I cant quite put my finger on why) better transient response, razor sharp now - much more rounded with a/c (this may be the most significant improvement) Plucked strings of a guitar sound more real. There is a nice improvement in spatial clues. Instruments are more pin-point then they are with a/c.

I was hoping the difference would be inaudible because my fiancee thinks I am crazy having a car battery in my living room. And she's probably right..
 
exaSound e20 DAC - DSD256 - 11.2896 MHz

exaSound Audio Design announces the launch of the e20 Mk II - the first high-end DAC capable of achieving DSD playback at sampling rate of 11.2896 MHz (DSD 256).

exaSound's DAC’s have always stayed ahead of the curve, and the latest e20’s DSD 256 capability not only goes beyond the capabilities of all other DAC’s on the market today, it is ahead of current recording technology. This ensures that audiophiles will be enjoying studio master files the way they were recorded – without down-sampling or down-conversion – well into the future, without equipment upgrades.

In addition to offering the highest digital audio resolution, the e20 DAC has jitter, distortion and noise levels that are vanishingly low, creating an astonishingly clean and analog-like sound – the difference is obvious, even with an ordinary CD. Detailed measurements, specifications and subjective impressions are available at exaSound Audio Design > Home.
 
Nice! Is this just an update to te current hardware of the e20 or is this with the new exa2ui board? I kinda thought the new version would have the higher size usb port.

Believe me, the new exaU2I is with the classic USB connector :) It is more difficult to update the connector on the e20 because of the enclosure design.
 

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Thank you, and the e20 mkII is the same board but with the smaller usb then?

I am sorry, I am not explaining this well. The old exaU2I is smaller and it uses the small mini USB commentator. The PCB of the new exaU2I (under development) has twice the surface of the old one, and it uses the classic large USB connector that audiophiles like to use.

All exaSound DACs are using a mini USB connector.

Regards,

exa065
 
Thanks for the clarification. It was a little confusing.

Exa2ui its one thing and e20 is another. I kinda thought that that eventually the exa2ui v2 would find its way inside the e20. That is why I got confused. I was expecting to see the bigger conector. Also, I seem to have read on a review somewhere exactly this, that it would use the bigger usb port and also that outputs would not be inverted. Dont know if the pictures on the website are of the older unit or if this continues on the new mkII. Regardless, you are offering a unique product at a very competitive price that have been gathering great reviews everywhere and I congratulate you for your efforts.

On another note: On the computer audiophile website there is a thread discussing miltichannel DSD using three stereo dacs with a USB hub through a custom ASIO driver. Do you thing we could see something like this with the e20?
 
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